Tag: nyc

About an hour before I left Manhattan on Monday morning, bound for the antiquated-as-all-get-out LaGuardia airport, I read an article in the New York Times detailing the plight of the “sick passenger” (and those unlucky enough to share a train with them). Just as life imitates art, art imitates life: as I was preparing to get off the E, completing my final train ride of this trip, I heard the unmistakable sound of retching from the other side of the car. Before allowing myself to dwell upon it, I sped out of the just-stopped car as quickly as I could manage with a medium-sized rolling suitcase in tow.

Aside from that anecdote I wish I didn’t feel the need to tell, some good things happened on my weekend jaunt to New York, too. A lot of good things.

On Saturday, I passed the 50,000-word goal for this year’s National Novel Writing Month. While I have yet to actually complete my story, I believe this ties my 2009 speed record – 21 days – for reaching 50,000. Unfortunately, this means I am less motivated to complete it now, since I’ve been running on fumes for the past 10,000 words trying to reach the goal. But that’s what the month is all about: quantity, not quality. I have the rest of my life to aspire to the quality of work I expect of myself in any other circumstance.

To celebrate my achievement, I visited an overall Cute And Fun bagel shop in the general Gramercy Park/Stuy Town area (neighborhoods are AWFULLY CONFUSING when you’re not a local and the place in question is situated on the border between two of them – but I digress). I have to say, while I mentioned on Facebook that it was surprisingly my first NYC bagel experience that didn’t involve a Dunkin Donuts, the bagel I had was almost indistinguishable from the ones I inhaled regularly at Ultimate Bagel when I lived in Spokane. Which isn’t bad, necessarily – it just made me miss Spokane a little bit.

You know how people say things are roller coaster rides of emotions? This was that, except more true than any time anyone has ever said it before. (Aside from this indescribability, I really just liked the music. Who knew professional musicians were that good at their instruments? I need to get out more.)

Later that night, I learned that there is a laundromat called Spin City at the corner where the protagonists of RENT live as we wandered around Alphabet City trying to find a suitable place to eat. We ended up at a diner with a health department “B” grade, chanced it, and didn’t die.

Sunday, I had the double pleasure of paying $16 to see a 2-D movie (Mockingjay Part 2, and I at least didn’t feel ripped off once I watched it) and having dinner with my NYC relatives (and Lee) at my aunt and uncle’s apartment. (The above photos were taken from their balcony.) I learned only that day that my grandparents didn’t know I was coming, so it was a really great time surprising them – especially my grandma’s reaction when she saw the person I came with was not the husband she had just watched me marry in July.

And then on Monday, I was an earwitness to a Sick Passenger, saw some ultra-casual (read: ultra-blatant, but thankfully nonviolent) racism on the part of the TSA, ate two Auntie Anne’s pretzels in two different states, and landed in Iowa, where I suddenly remembered that it gets cold and snows in places that are not New York, where it was a balmy 50 degrees all weekend.

Landing in Chicago.

Probably the Mississippi River, based on when I took the photo. But perhaps it isn’t.

Peak Iowa sunset.

I know I haven’t written here in several months, and I promise I have many solid (or at least “plausible”) reasons for that – being back in school, for one – but it seems like leaving Iowa every once in a while tends to help spike my creativity. If I had unlimited funds for travel…you know, I’ll just try my best to write more anyway.

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2020 General ElectionNovember 3rd, 2020

19months to go.

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